Pamukkale – The Cotton Castle

One of the best places in Turkey that is well worth a visit, even if it is kind of far from Istanbul(700km). It’s a unique place. There are natural pools on the heel consisting of a cascade of travertines or terraces of carbonate minerals. It’s white all around with a nice landscape over the city and the heels far away. It is opened day and night. When we got there it was getting dark so we choose to stay there one more day. There is the south gate entrance, where everybody is going, that is the base of the travertines and the north gate, where we were going 🙂 where it tends to be more quiet and relaxing. It takes 2km to get from the parking place to the travertines, but it’s a pleasure, you get to see the Hierapolis ruins, and the nice garden with pools, flowers and trees, it’s so enchanting! We spent the first night just looking far away at the sparkling landscape and taking our dinner right there in front of the pools. As the sun started setting, we could see people descending on the travertines to the south gate and we were all alone! We just couldn’t get enough of it, you can see why! it was so relaxing! The water is lukewarm, it’s kind of chilly for the night, so even though the plan was to leave to the south of Turkey in the morning, we decided we will stay one more day, we couldn’t miss the bath in the travertines. We tried the natural pools and the artificial ones, we visited Hierapolis ruins, and so we spent all day long at Pamukkale. After the sunset we continued our trip to the south of Turkey.